Free A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

man, or she’ll end up in the ditch herself, and I’ll see to it personally.
And
I’ll black both her eyes. I knew she was trouble the minute I laid eyes on her.”
    Her court seemed to go along with it. Vanette Pankey nodded down at us, saying, “She means it.”
    Waynetta adjusted her tiara, and the parade lurched past us. It rolled on out into the countryside to disband. Dust settled.
    I thought it was pretty lowdown, picking on a little kid and stealing her doll because you didn’t like her big sister. So I was in the ditch, helping Ruth Ann fish Grachel out of some standing water. Ruth Ann was crying, partly from relief. But also because somebody was nasty enough to kidnap Grachel.
    “But what did all that mean?” Mother said, completely baffled.
    I had a hazy idea, though I wasn’t a hundred percent.
    Mrs. Dowdel said nothing but “Hoo-boy.”
    “You can say that again,” Mrs. Wilcox said.
    *  *  *
    Phyllis swung home for a quick supper with us that evening. We hadn’t seen her in the parade because, as she said, she’d been back at school on the clean-up committee. Though she never cleaned up anything around home, including her own room.
    Then in a pair of fresh socks, she was heading for the door and the sock hop down at the gym. Mother thought itwas all right because teachers would be there to chaperone. “But be back by ten,” Mother called after her. “You’re only f—”
    “Don’t wait up,” Phyllis yelled as the door banged behind her.
    The rest of us had a quiet night at home. Fairly quiet. These nights there were always people out in Mrs. Dowdel’s melon patch, many with lanterns and all with spades, digging. They were the ones who believed she’d buried her money in her patch. Mrs. Dowdel let them think it. Her crops were all in, and the ground needed a good digging over before winter anyway. All she did was serve notice on the world that she’d be out in her patch on Halloween night in case of funny business. So bear it in mind.
    It was all hours when a pounding came on our front door. Mother was still awake because Phyllis wasn’t home yet. She started down the stairs and stopped.
    “Jack, get up and get dressed,” she called in to Dad. “I’m afraid it’s Mrs. Dowdel.”
    Now I was up and trailing Mother downstairs. Only Ruth Ann slept through this. She and Grachel were tucked up in bed, sawing logs.
    Out on the porch the discs of Mrs. Dowdel’s spectacles flashed in the ceiling light. Mother fumbled the door open, and we saw someone else. Not Mrs. Wilcox. It was another small gnome of a figure—one more ancient lady in a town full of them. She wore old-fashioned metal curlers in hersparse hair and a fur coat. White cold cream clung in all the crevices of her face. I almost knew her.
    Mother wavered on the doorsill.
    “This here’s Cora Shellabarger.” Mrs. Dowdel pointed out the small figure sagging in her shadow. She was one of the Shellabarger sisters, the richest old maids in town. “She come to me about it instead of heading directly to you folks.”
    Miss Cora Shellabarger seemed to whimper. “Well, it’s not the kind of thing you want to bring to the preacher, of all people.”
    “Everybody brings everything to my door,” Mrs. Dowdel proclaimed. “I’m the town dump.” She elbowed Miss Shellabarger. “Go ahead and tell ’em, Cora. Spit it out and shuck right down to the cob.”
    Miss Shellabarger worked her hands. “I wish Flora had come in place of me,” she murmured. “It’s about your girl, Mrs. Barnhart, your daughter Phyllis. She’s breathing, and she’s conscious, and she’s on the settee in our front room. And I don’t want you to worry because we think she’ll live.”

C HAPTER T EN

One Too Many
    T he Shellabarger place was known for miles around. Abraham Lincoln had slept in the milk house on his way to Bement. That was when the milk house was a log dwelling. Old Man Shellabarger had built the present structure in 1878, with